The Mayor of Nagoya says that he wants to withdraw the city from Japan’s digitized national identification system known as Jyuki Net, arguing that the system treats people like cattle and is Stalin-esque.
Jyuki Net is a digitalized national identification registry system sponsored by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), and was started around ten years ago in an effort to increase efficiency and accuracy, and reduce costs, relating to the upkeep of basic identity records for such things as voter registration, national health care, and social security
The system is currently used by all but two relatively small cities across the nation. Those two cities have cited concerns over protection of privacy, among other reasons for not connecting. MIC has tried, but been unsuccessful at bringing them on board, according to Jiji Press. However, now Nagoya’s Mayor, Takashi Kawamura, wants to remove the major city of around 2.26 million people from the system.
When the system was originally introduced, it was opposed by the Democratic Party of Japan, who still held only a relatively small portion of parliamentary seats at that time. Before Kawamura was Nagoya’s mayor, he was a representative of parliament, and had tried to introduce plans to eliminate the system on four separate occasions with the help of current Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and current MIC Minister Kazuhiro Haraguchi, the Yomiuri reported.
Mayor Kawamura emphasized his stance to reporters this week, “To say ‘let’s administrate by sticking people with numbers,’ is the same as branding cows with numbers. It’s the unification system for people that Stalin’s Soviet Union tried to use. I have to strongly oppose the idea of introducing to Japan a mechanism that would even surprise Stalin,” according to J-Cast News.
However, in an open discussion on January 19th between Mayor Kawamura and Minister Haraguchi, Haraguchi looked to delay any quick actions, “We must protect the law as it currently stands. I want to continue the debate with that premise.”
One independent specialist, Hiroo Ogawa, commented to J-Cast News, “The number of opposing self-governing bodies has been small up until now, but if a large city like Nagoya leaves, things could start to unravel and others may follow, too.”
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